Loving Like God

I spent many years looking for the fulfillment of Malachi 4:5 & 6:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” KJV

I used to think this meant, at some point there would be a turning of flesh and blood fathers toward flesh and blood children that this would be a flesh and blood redemption outside of or in addition to the blood of Christ.

One day I finally came to realize that this promise/threat, is fulfilled in Christ: “And again, ‘I will put my trust in him.'” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” Hebrews 2:13.  Here The writer of Hebrews is quoting Isaiah 8:18: “Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.”

This not only speaks of Christ, and the children God has given Him, but also to us, who have seen and believe in the relational Lordship of Christ in His Body.

The Apostle Paul had children too – spiritual children. A careful rereading of the New Testament letters reveals that this spiritual parenthood was, and ought to be normal for the Church!  The Church is a new creation. Like the old creation, families are normal to creation, and parents and children are normal to families, no matter which creation we are talking about.

There ain’t no plan “B”!

Love!

Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.~   Mark 10:29-30 & Matthew 19:29

By Jay Ferris, originally posted May 25, 2011

This weeks post is a very important message shared by Jay Ferris in July, 2007 at an annual conference called “Searching Together.”   Jay once said this may have been one of the most anointed times of sharing in public he’s ever experienced, and it was a subject that was very dear to his heart.

He said, “The things I share I’m very passionate about, but I’m ready to repent if you can show me a more excellent way.”

What is the excellent way?  And what are the needs of the Bride of Christ?   Be encouraged that this is definitely an audio worth listening to.

Continue reading →

The following is a small but necessary side trip from our main theme – God’s kind of Love, and relationships that come from God, but I am hopeful that it will prove helpful for those who have a heart to love like God in relationship to others.

Over the past 40 years of attempting to live this out, I have come to think of myself as a lover in training. I commend this identification to you as well.

That said, there is no challenge as lovers in training so difficult and demanding as loving and being caught between two people who don’t get along or are incompatible. If you love and encourage the one, you offend and discourage the other. It is the most conflicted situation that we, as lovers in training are likely to encounter.

Here again, this is where lovers in training need to turn to the cross, and even Jesus’ garden experience the night before the cross. Jesus was caught between us and His Father, with whom we were/are incompatible. For Him to drink the cup was to associate Himself with our incompatibility. “My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken me… ?,” Psalms 22:1. This is the price of being caught between two people who don’t see eye to eye. It is the highest challenge to our faith, and the one where, more than any other, we need to identify ourselves as lovers in training.

Love!

By Jay Ferris, originally posted on April 10, 2011